Consequent to a change in or the introduction of a new information technology system management method, the schema of a configuration management database (CMDB) may change.
Here, a schema is an outline representing data configuration and type. A CMDB is a database recording data related to associations between configuration items (CI), such as IT system configuration items. A CI is a resource that is subject to configuration management, such as, for example, hardware, software, documents, services, assets, etc.
When the CMDB schema changes, the format of data related to the CIs in the CMDB and to the associations (relationships) between the CIs changes corresponding to the schema change. For example, if a server in the system is managed by adding a name easily recognized by a person, in addition to the host name automatically created systematically, the CMDB schema changes.
In this case, corresponding to the CMDB schema change, for example, if the format of data related to the server in the CMDB is not converted, the host name cannot be described as the new name. Therefore, when the CMDB schema changes, the formats of data related to CIs in the CMDB and relationships thereof are converted according to the change. For examples of prior technologies related to data conversion, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. 2006-79277, 2003-248675, H3-81841, 2005-78237, and 2006-293796; Japanese National Re-publication of International Patent Application No. 2005-086003; and Japanese Patent No. 4242056.
Nonetheless, with the conventional technologies, when the CMDB schema changes, the formats of the data related to the CIs in the CMDB and the associations thereof are converted collectively. Consequently, a problem arises in that the processing time consumed to convert the data increases. Further, during the data conversion, data recording, searches, updating, etc. cannot be performed with respect to the CMDB. Consequently, accompanying the increase in the time consumed for data conversion in the conventional technologies, a further problem arises in that the duration of service suspension increases.